HSBC, one of the principle banks funding notorious palm oil company KLK

I am outraged that Kuala Lumpur Kepong (KLK), an HSBC-financed company, is threatening to impose industrial scale palm oil plantations in Collingwood Bay, Papua New Guinea, against the will of the Indigenous communities whose land it is.

The nine chiefs representing the Collingwood Bay community, in a rarely issued joint communiqué, in 2010 voiced the consensus of the residents —who total over 7,000 people from 326 clans in 22 villages scattered across our coastline—that they do not wish to have palm oil plantations established on their land under any circumstances. Yet, in the past weeks, KLK has brought large earth moving equipment, a barge of palm oil seeds, and security personnel to Collingwood Bay in attempts to move forward development of palm oil plantations.

As a principal banker to KLK, HSBC has the responsibility to take urgent action and convince KLK to remove this equipment, barge, and security personnel from Collingwood Bay territory immediately and to cease all current and planned activities related to their palm oil plantation project in Collingwood Bay.

The people of Collingwood Bay are asking you to uphold HSBC’s commitments to responsible palm oil finance and to not bankroll rainforest destruction and the violation of their rights, including the right to free, prior and informed consideration of major development proposals in their territories and their fundamental right to give or withhold consent.

As one of the world’s largest banks and a major financier of palm oil companies, I expect HSBC to use its full leverage to prevent KLK from moving forward with its destructive palm oil plantations project in Collingwood Bay. The world will be watching.

Finally, I add my voice to the thousands of other stakeholders who are demanding that you put in place new palm oil sector finance policies which ensure that all HSBC financing is conditioned on the protection of human rights including the tenure rights of forest-dependent communities, protection of standing rainforests and the protection of carbon-rich tropical peatlands.

Signed,

Rainforest Action Network

This petition closed over 1 year ago

How this will help

Tell HSBC: Stop the Illegal Land Grab in Collingwood Bay!

The people of Collingwood Bay have built their culture and livelihoods around the primary forest and pristine marine environment that...

The people of Collingwood Bay have built their culture and livelihoods around the primary forest and pristine marine environment that surrounds their community in Papua New Guinea.

Now their way of life and ancestral lands are under attack by palm oil giant KLK. They've brought their complaints to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the organization which is supposed to stop illegal land grabs, but the response from the RSPO has been slow. Meanwhile KLK has continued to push its agenda—landing a barge with palm oil seeds and security personnel in Collingwood Bay. It's time for this to stop. HSBC is a principal bank to KLK, and has the power to stop this entire land grab in its tracks. Will you take a moment to send HSBC a note, demanding that they take immediate action to halt KLK's theft of the Collingwood Bay community's land?